Not just a hobby, it's a way of Life

As you can probably deduce from the lack of posts and sheer volume of yammering when I do post, it’s been a bit busy ’round here. In fact, even though there are still things percolating, last Thursday was really a point where I could take a breath and go, “Whew!” What does a knitter do at that point? She (in this particular case) casts on socks.

A post shared by Needlefingers (@needlefingers) on Jul 31, 2017 at 6:28pm PDT

(Yes, I know you can see these in the widget on the side bar, but isn’t this more personal like we’re actually talking about them?)

I know I have more things looming (ha – weaving joke! Yes, there’s also a bunch of stuff I need to weave), but for right now, I’m enjoying the relative freedom to do whatever I want for the next couple of weeks. Just so long as what I want to do is make about 60 pounds of soap and dye skeins and skeins of yarn. Fortunately, that’s exactly what I want to do. :)

What have I been up to? Probably the biggest thing is that I have become a contributor to the Phat Fiber box. It’s a monthly box people can snag full of yarn and fiber samples from independent dyers. While it’s probably a bit premature, I do love dabbling in the dye, and this should be motivation for me to do that.

It’s weird that I should need motivation to do something I enjoy, but there you go. As the list of hobbies grows, naturally some are going to get pushed to the side. But also, regardless of how productive I can be, there’s still time that is simply wasted. I don’t want to be running 24/7, but I also don’t need to play Facebook games when there’s more fulfilling stuff to do. So if there’s external pressure, I’m hoping I’ll be a little more focused on doing things that bring me joy.

And if I make a little money in the process, even better. With my primary (“day job”) continuing to decrease adjunct financial opportunities, I realize the only person I want in control of my destiny is me. Being at another’s whim is rife with uncertainty; I want to be in control of my destiny because I’m really the only one that cares about it. Does my employer (not my boss – she’s awesome) care that cutting hours affects my life? Nope. It becomes more and more apparent that if I’m going to have to stitch together multiple jobs to make ends meet (the reality of many adjunct instructors in higher education), I want those jobs to be something I enjoy. I don’t want to teach for half a dozen colleges with students who don’t want to learn. I want to dye things, and spin things, and weave things.

So, each month I’ll send Crys some yarn to toss in a box, and we’ll see what happens.

These are going to be birthday socks for a very dear lady. It’s yarn I dyed that I wasn’t too sure about, but it’s working up fantastically. Yay for no pooling! (and now they will start pooling, of course)